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He woke alone. A crick lived in his neck, and his mouth was dry. The hall was as empty as when he had sat down.

She had not come.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and pushed the despair down. He would not quit. There had to be a way to show her the heart was true.

He had only to find it.

Stiff, he got up and went back through the hidden leaf into the library. Dawn had begun to thin the windows. The light was gray at first, then a little rose.

A new day. Another chance. The library smelled of cold paper and last night’s fire. He stood a moment with his palm on the hidden leaf, as if the wood might tell him she had stood here while he slept against a pane. It told him nothing.

He would not throw the day away. If the walls would not give her up, he would learn another language they spoke. He would take books and marks and patience, whatever the house would tell him, and offer whatever she would one day take.

CHAPTER 16

"Her heart was overwhelmed with tenderness and regret for having, perhaps, occasioned him a pang."

Ann Radcliffe

* * *

February 19, 1822

The study Gabriel and Henri had taken for their work smelled of coal and paper when Angelo stopped in the door. He caught sealing wax under those smells, and a little of Henri’s rose water. He waited there like a man not sure of his welcome. A log settled in the grate and threw a spark. Henri sat at the window desk over a stack of letters, the light thin and gray on her page. Gabriel had the chair by the fire and a lap full of sheets, and Angelo saw ink on his thumb. They looked up. Henri smiled. Gabriel’s look held the small caution of a host who had learned this house did not always send ordinary news.

“Forgive the interruption.” Angelo came in. His own voice sounded wrong to him, flat, with the warmth scraped off it. “I am in want of help, and I did not know whom else to ask.”

“Of course.” Henri laid the pen down at once. Concern cut a line between her brows. “Come in. What do you need?”

He went farther in and felt how he must look. The glass that morning had shown a stranger. He had seen the hollows under his own eyes, and the color gone from his face, and a collar that sat wrong because his fingers had shaken on the pin. Nights without sleep had done the carving. Henri would see it. She saw most things. He could only hope she would not name Isolde aloud. A name spoken in this room would make the hunt real in a way he was not ready to defend.

“I need a botanist,” he said, no preface. “Or a town that keeps one. Collectors. Rare stock. Unusual bloom.” He stalled, not ready to lay Isolde on their table. “There is a plant I must put my hands on, and I have no map for the hunt.”

Gabriel’s frown deepened. “A botanist? An odd request. Is it for your shop work?”

“In a manner.” Angelo locked his hands behind him. The pose felt stiff. He usually talked with the whole of himself. A ring on Gabriel’s desk caught the fire and threw it back. Angelo looked at that instead of at Henri’s kindness. “Some plants mend. Some only make a showing. I think one of them may serve a trouble I am trying to meet. I will know it when I see it. That is the difficulty. I cannot name it to a seedsman and be done.”

Henri glanced at her husband, then rose and came to Angelo. She studied his face with that quick mind he had learned to respect. She was looking through the dodge.

“Angelo.” The word came out gentle. “Are you well? You are not yourself. You are usually a lamp in a room. Today you seem …” She hunted the word. “Low. Sunk, even.”

Sunk was the right word. He could not own it aloud. He was sunk. Days moved because he made them move. All of it for a woman in the walls, a phantom he had cut with a careless sentence and could not reach again.

“Sleep has been poor,” he said, which was true. “The wind on the cliffs sits badly.”

Henri did not take that as the whole. She was too kind to press a confession he would not give.

“If you can go to botanists,” she said, picking the words with care, “it may serve you. You will have new air, and a task that is not Lorenzo’s hunt, and a rest from this house.”

“Sì.” He nodded, grateful for the grace even as he saw it for what it was. She had let him keep his screen. “If I find the right stock, I believe it will mend what ails me.”

Gabriel put the papers aside and leaned in. Angelo could see a diplomat’s mind already turning the problem. “What sort of circle do you want? Cornwall is not famed for horticultural clubs, though there are pockets.”

“Anywhere with collectors,” Angelo said. “Folk who grow what an ordinary bed will not hold. I want rare flower and foreign leaf.”

“Truro,” Gabriel said after a thought. “I have heard of a keen set there. Orchards, yes. Also private men who trade in odd stock. Largest town in the county. Your best chance.”

“Truro.” Angelo tried the name. A weak spark of interest woke in him. At least he had a direction now, and a purpose that was not whispering into iron that never answered. “How far?”